I made a New Year's resolution that 2009 would be the year I would finally get healthy ... with the aim of losing 70lbs. That journey was the start of changing many things in my life for the better ... and I'm still on the journey!

Tuesday, 13 October 2009

Changing the plan

I've decided to change my weigh in day to a Friday for a bit as an experiment.

Why?

I'll explain.

Every week my eating falls into a set pattern: during the week I eat pretty clean. I cook my dinners, mostly from scratch, I eat breakfast and a proper lunch, and I have snacks to keep my metabolism boosted. I get some fruit and veg, and I drink plenty of fluids. I also get some exercise. My weekends then fall into one of 3 categories:

It's a really quiet weekend, and my eating's the same as during the week. Clean.

It's a normal weekend - I do a bit of planning, but it's a little bit more fluid than during the week. I'll stick to my points, prob including any saved points from during the week, but I might eat out, which will be added sodium and MSG (doesn't particularly agree with me). Not as clean as during the week, but not overly bad.

All hell breaks loose, and I go massively over points somewhere along the line. My eating is in no way clean, I've probably not drunk enough (or too much of the wrong stuff), and I know I'm on track for a gain. There's no point even trying to regain the points I've gone over, so I just switch to sticking to points for the remaining days till weigh in.

Very occasionally, scenario 4 occurs:

Sue is broken. I've gone so far over the line, that the line is a distant memory, just a pinprick on the horizon, and I just give up trying to point it, as I don't have that many fingers and toes (I'm an accountant, and it's a well known fact that we can't count very well). All damage control measures are thrown out of the pram along with the toys. I stop caring, until after weigh in. When I care very much.

With all that in mind, weighing in on a Monday is a bit of a traumatic experience, because I never know how the weekend is going to have affected all the groundwork that I layed the previous week.

Ultimately, of course, the groundwork still counts, and in the grand scheme of things, I still lose the same amount of weight over the long run. But how often have I bemoaned the fact, that if I was just weighing in a couple of days later, my weight wouldn't be fluctuating so much.

Well, call me slow, but it's just occurred to me, that I don't have to weigh in on a Monday if I don't want to. So I'm going to move my weigh in day as far away from the weekend as possibe - et voila - we end up on Friday.

(See how I've neatly cycled back to the beginning - beautiful. Unless, you're one of those impatient types who wanted me to actually make my point quickly, in which case my friend, you are on the wrong blog entirely!!)

So there we have it - it's not going to make me lose weight quicker, I'm not that deluded, but it might help me avoid the traumatic peaks and troughs, and make better sense of what I can get away with, and what is genuinely too much.

That said - moving my weigh in day has meant that I have inadvertantly bought last weekend's excesses into this week - oh goody! I've somehow got rid of about 8 points of my deficit already, but I've still got another 11.5 to get rid of.

I optimistically booked myself in for Body Combat last night whilst I was at the gym, but I now realise that I'm still far too stiff to attempt it. I desperately want to know how much longer all these twinges can last for, because my stretches don't seem to be making much difference. Think I'm going to have to back as see my physio again, and hope and pray that she says it will fix itself. Preferably without me having to take 1 or 2 complete weeks of exercise. And definitely before windsurfing in just under 4 weeks. Getting a leeeeeeetle bit worried about it now!!

6 comments:

OK girl... I am hoping you are going to be my motivation to get my butt in gear & start dropping the lbs. (I did go to the gym this morning at 6am..) but still didn't eat well.. sigh... Off to read some more of your posts...

I think that's a good call on the WI front, physchologically (that's a blooming hard word to spell!!) you're likely to feel a lot more positive about things if you don't have the occaisonal weekend excess to concern yourself with on a Monday morning.

you need to do what's right for you and it seems like you know what you need to do! I have changed my wi a number of times because I felt like I was using Friday weigh ins to indulge on the weekends. Like I said you know yourself best and need to do what's righ for you!

keep it up, honey...you're on the right track. Make sure that any down time you have is spent watching those shows about ppl who have lost tremendous amounts of weight...those inspirational stories. They always motivate me!

I changed my weigh in day too, so I understand your epiphany about not weighing in right after the weekends. I agree that it often gives a misleading reading. Good on you for doing what works for you. It's a simple tactic, but often overlooked.

About Me

I sometimes think I'm a bundle of contradictions - but I guess that's what makes me interesting - I love being with people, and I love having my space. I'm both extrovert and introvert, as the mood takes me. I'm in love with the countryside, wide-open spaces and the great outdoors, but adore the hustle and bustle of a big city, a cool cocktail bar and the chatter of the city folk in their latest fashions. I guess I just like life on my terms.